Son Ngoc Thanh

Son Ngoc Thanh (7 December 1908-8 August 1977) was Prime Minister of Cambodia from 14 August to 16 October 1945 (succeeding Norodom Sihanouk and preceding Sisowath Monireth) and of the Khmer Republic from 18 March to 15 October 1972 (succeeding Sisowath Sirik Matak and preceding Hang Thun Hak).

Biography
Son Ngoc Thanh was born in Tra Vinh Province, French Indochina in 1908, and he was educated in France before becoming a colonial administrator. He became a Khmer nationalist, co-founding the first Khmer-language newspaper in 1936. He became receptive to Japanese fascism and supported a right-wing republican government, making him enemies with Norodom Sihanouk. From 1942 to 1945, he went into exile in Japan, but he returned when Sihanouk declared Cambodian independence on 12 March 1945. He served as Prime Minister from August to October 1945, and he became a leader of the Khmer Issarak movement during the First Indochina War. He was increasingly sidelined by the leftists by 1954, and he founded the Khmer Serei militia to rebel against Sihanouk's government. The Khmer Republic absorbed his army into FANK and made him Prime Minister in 1972, but he fled into exile in South Vietnam that same year due to a falling-out with Lon Nol. He died in a North Vietnamese prison in 1977.